Fatboy Slim says he felt paralyzed in anticipation of his imminent DJing resume | Fatboy Slim

Fatboy Slim said he felt paralyzed and “terrified” at the thought of DJing as an alcoholic after spending so much time recovering from his addiction.

The actor, whose real name is Norman Cook, spoke of his alcoholism as a virus and said being an alcoholic was “probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done” in an appearance on Radio 4’s. Pictures of Desert Island and Lauren Laverne.

He said he took steps to deal with his problem after his wife at the time, radio DJ Zoe Ball, said she would leave him if he didn’t stop drinking. “That was my time to wake up because there were a lot of people shouting at me before, but in the end it was whispered quietly.

“Addiction is a very strange disease and it is like a virus, it protects itself.

“Probably the last year of my drinking, I wasn’t really enjoying it, and things started to fall apart in my life.”

He entered in 2009 and has been sober for about 15 years. While in rehab, he realized he had asked for help “just in time”, he said.

Asked if he found it easy to quit smoking, he said: “No, absolutely not, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done … I couldn’t have done it without going to rehab. I needed someone to hurt my head for a month. You know, ‘you’re going to die, and you’re going to be miserable if you don’t stop doing this’.”

He said the anxiety he had when he returned to the stage to do alcohol took some time to disappear. “In the first five shows, I was paralyzed and very scared, I couldn’t dance, and I didn’t enjoy it.” I was thinking: ‘What are you really doing?

He said that “a beautiful night in Japan” helped him overcome his fears while the crowd was “very happy”, and he realized that his work was a crowd pleaser. “Everything came together,” he said.

After performing with the Housemartins alongside Paul Heaton, who would go on to form Southern Beauty, Cook became known as Fatboy Slim in the 1990s. He released a number of club hits including Praise You, The Rockafeller Skank and Right Here, Right Now.

He has received six Grammy nominations and won the 2002 Best Music Video award for Weapon Of Choice, which stars Hollywood actor Christopher Walken as he dances in a deserted hotel.

The entire Desert Island Discs series can be heard on BBC Sounds and the BBC Radio 4 starting Sunday at 10am.